Deal in works for parking ticket firm with ties to mayor

Rachel Gordon, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, July 23, 1998

1998-07-23 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- City officials are moving forward with a plan to award a lucrative contract for a new automated parking-ticket system to a company whose City Hall lobbyist is a close friend of Mayor Brown's.

Backers of the deal disavowed any hint of impropriety in the deal and said it was expected to reap big bucks for The City's coffers.

Stuart Sunshine, who heads parking and traffic, said his agency had recommended PRWT Services not because of William G. "Billy" Rutland Jr.'s ties to the mayor but because it was the only bidder that offered what The City wanted.

Former parking and traffic commissioner Sharon Bretz, whom the mayor dumped from her post, alleged the contract had been written with PRWT Services in mind. But high-ranking city officials, Brown among them, said that wasn't the case. The company offers similar parking-ticket collection services in several major cities, including Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia.

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The new system&lt;

Under the new system, parking-control officers would use hand-held computers instead of their pen-and-paper ticket pads. The devices would be connected to a central computer that could spit out instantaneous information about whether the vehicle is stolen or is eligible for the dreaded "Denver Boot" because it has racked up multiple tickets. Ticket processing and fee collection also would be tied to the system.

PRWT Services plans to subcontract with Lockheed Martin to provide the software for the system. Rutland is Lockheed Martin's local lobbyist. He is a former top Assembly aide to Brown who remains the mayor's good friend.

Under the proposed contract, PRWT Services would receive $2.41 from The City for each of the first 2 million parking citations it processes a year, with the dollar amount declining for each ticket above 2 million. With projections showing that nearly 2.3 million tickets would be issued annually, the contractor is expected to collect about $5.4million.

When first proposed, PRWT Services was to get $3.26 per citation.

The City now collects money from 69 percent of the citations issued. Officials estimated the automated system would increase the collection rate 2 percent a year.

The outcome, if all goes according to plan: more money for The City. Parking authorities say The City should make roughly $1million a year, even after the contractor is paid for processing the citations.

There's a catch&lt;

The catch: The City must pay the contractor for processing the tickets whether the money is collected or not.

"There is no guarantee of increased revenue, and no penalties are assigned to the contractor in the event that increased revenues are not realized," warned Harvey Rose, the Board of Supervisors budget analyst.

Sunshine said other cities working with the contractor had made money, adding he believed the projections for San Francisco were conservative.

Supervisor Mabel Teng, who chairs the board's Finance Committee, tried to squeeze a guarantee out of Sunshine.

"The City can garnish my wages," Sunshine said. "We are confident that there's going to be increased revenue for The City." &lt;